Definitions
Prepared by the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse
University of Auckland, June 2013
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These definitions relate to Data Summaries
Legal definitions
An important note on interpreting the data
The majority of data in the summaries has been drawn from administrative and service data. As such, they are dependent on reporting and recording practices and cannot be used as indicators of the incidence of family violence in the population. In addition, they cannot be used to comment on trends in the occurrence of family violence over time. Sexual and family violence are often not reported to authorities and so can be very hard to measure from administrative data. Further, the data provided are often provisional (subject to change if new information is gathered) and drawn from dynamic operational databases.
Crimes Act 1961
Homicide: Under the Crimes Act 1961, a homicide is considered culpable when it consists of the killing of any person by: an unlawful act; an omission to perform a legal duty; acombination of an unlawful act and an omission to perform a legal duty; the use of threats, the fear of violence or deception which leads the victim to do an act which results in their death; or by willfully frightening a child or a sick person.